Face of Oldest Known Human Revealed After 300000 Years
The face of the oldest known human has been reconstructed for the first time, revealing a man described as “strong and serene.”
This reconstruction was created by Brazilian graphics expert Cicero Moraes, who used a 3D scan of a skull to bring the ancient human to life. The skull came from the Jebel Irhoud remains, named after the Moroccan site where they were discovered. These fossils demonstrated that Homo sapiens evolved 100,000 years earlier than previously believed.
The findings also suggested that our ancestors expanded beyond East Africa, spreading across the continent millennia earlier than earlier evidence indicated.
Explaining the process, Mr. Moraes said, “Initially, I scanned the skull in 3D, using data provided by researchers at the Max Planck Institute. Then I proceeded with the facial approximation, which involved various approaches, such as anatomical deformation.”
This technique included mapping the 3D skull diagram onto a “donor” skull prototype, based on an adult male with a low body mass index. Mr. Moraes chose to depict the skull with male features due to its “robust and masculine” characteristics.
“Then I proceeded with the facial approximation, which consisted of crossing several approaches, such as anatomical deformation.”
This technique involved mapping the 3D skull diagram onto a “donor” skull prototype, which was based on an adult male with a low body mass index.
Mr Moraes said he chose to give the skull a male face based on the “robust and masculine” features of the skull.
Further data from modern humans was used to predict the thickness of the soft tissue, and the likely projection of the nose and other facial structures.
“The final face is the interpolation of all this data, which generates two groups of images, one objective, with more technical elements, without hair and in greyscale,” Mr Moraes said.
Without hair and skin pigmentation
“The other is artistic, with pigmentation of the skin and hair.”
The skull itself is actually composite of various fossils, recreated into a whole that the designer said was “excellent and quite coherent, anatomically speaking”.
The Max Planck Institute, which supplied the data from the skull, said that the Jebel Irhoud remains had a “modern-looking face and teeth, and a large but more archaic-looking braincase”.
The Institute said genetic changes affecting brain connectivity, organisation and development had transformed the braincase into the skulls we all have today.
Moraes agreed and compared the Skhul V skull to an archaic Homo sapiens.
“The Jebel Irhoud skull has some characteristics compatible with Neanderthals or Heidelbergensis (extinct human relatives).
“It is very interesting to observe the differences and compatibilities between the structures of these skulls and faces over thousands of years.”
Fossils from the Jebel Irhoud site were initially discovered in the 1960s and estimated to be about 40,000 years old before scientists revisited the site and new techniques revealed the bones to be roughly 300,000 years old.
Jean-Jacques Hublin, Max Planck Institute, said at the time: “We used to think there was a cradle of mankind 200,000 years ago in east Africa.
